Jessalyn Valios
Jessalyn Valios, also known as the Jedi Witch, was a Jedi Master and apprentice to Luke Skywalker in the years following the Battle of Endor. A slender, long-legged woman of Corellian descent, she had a wild mane of wavy red hair, fierce green eyes and a brilliant smile. Her Jedi regimentals were usually green or black, and her lightsaber had a turquoise blade. Eventually she would become a Jedi Master and caretaker of the Jedi Younglings who required constant protection and training. Early Life For many years, Jessalyn was completely unaware of her heritage. The fact that she was the daughter of a Jedi had been hidden from her and the rest of the galaxy for her own protection. Before her birth, Jessalyn's parents were part of a security detail for a scientific survey of Yavin IV. After they were killed, she remained there, raised by a series of foster parents among the small colony of scientists, not knowing anything of the rest of her family left behind on Corellia. One such caretaker was a Corellian xenoarchaeologist named Xavier Nighman, who doted on the reserved little girl. Many years later she would meet his son, Paul Nighman, who would help her track down the truth about her family. From Ace Flight Tech to Jedi Knight She attended the Corellian Flight School as an adolescent, becoming an ace flight tech, and joined the Rebel Alliance, where she met Skywalker in 7 ABY and rose to the rank of Colonel in the New Republic Support Corps. As a Corellian and a redhead, she was stubborn, witty and kind, yet fiercely loyal and protective of her friends and comrades. But her career in the New Republic was somewhat short-lived when Skywalker recognized her potential within the Force and offered to train her as his first Jedi Knight. Though the feelings between Jessa and Skywalker were sometimes more than that of Master and apprentice, the two never forged a relationship beyond friendship. But at his side, she would help rebuild the New Jedi Order and fight what remained of the Empire and the Sith. Not long after she met Skywalker and his sister through mutual friends in the New Republic (namely, a Wookiee named Chewbacca), Jessalyn found herself pulled along on his adventures, including a mission to rescue Han Solo from Etti IV. Their group of adventurers grew to include Shenneret Veery and Paul Nighman, both of whom became some of her closest friends. Paul, a fellow Corellian and xenoarchaeologist, was a particular source of angst for the young woman, and they spent many years bouncing back into each other's lives as both friends and occasionally lovers. Once Solo had been rescued the group went their separate ways, including Jessalyn. Even though Luke had offered to begin training her in the Force, Jessa was not yet ready to give up on her career and recent promotion to CO of the NR's Support Corps. She helped establish their base on Yavin and for a while she divided her priorities between her duties as a Colonel and a Jedi-in-training. As Luke's first apprentice, she became one of Lara Grayson's prime rivals. She was kidnapped by Noghri agents of Emperor Bacharan Valak on Tatooine in 7 ABY, and later rescued by Skywalker. Once again in 8 ABY, while trying to track down the missing Skywalker on Bonadan, she was defeated by Lara Grayson in a lightsaber duel and taken to Valak where she was held in stasis and would not resurface until 10 ABY when she was rescued by the unlikely coalition of Cort Stasus, Simon Sezirok and Mira Isaria. Even though Jessa was liberated from Valak, it would be months before she could be awakened, for her soul was caught inside an elaborate Sith Mind Trap. Return of the Jedi Witch By happenstance, a witness to Jessalyn's awakening was Orson Tighe, one of Talon Karrde's employees, who eventually became her first apprentice as well as a serious love interest. As Jessa and her new companions sought out information on the Death Star III, the Selas Simon Sezirok took his own interest in the recovering Jedi, and she tried to lure him back from the Dark Path he had started upon. Her efforts met with failure, and ultimately led to Orson's murder at Simon's hands. Heartbroken and blaming herself, Jessalyn came to doubt her ability to train others in the ways of the Force. Luke Skywalker comforted her with his own insights and helped her regain her strength of self once more. However, there were only more obstacles waiting around the corner. In 11 ABY, a man named Aurejin, a Jedi of the Old Ways who had apparently survived the original Jedi Purge, emerged on the scene and befriended the members of the New Order. Around the same time, an imposter calling himself Palpatine confronted Jessalyn and nearly killed her, but just as she was giving in to her inevitable death, he forced his will upon her, squelching her Self and turning her into a mindless slave to do his bidding. The acts she committed while she was "Palpatine's" puppet would haunt her -- and many innocent others -- for the rest of her life. As she gathered strength to kill herself rather than live this way, the Jedi Aurejin stepped in to save her from herself and redeem her from the imposter's control. Jessalyn temporarily lost her Jedi powers and was horribly burned when she tried to stop Sezirok during a Sith Ritual on Yavin IV. After her recovery, she helped to establish the palazzo on Corellia which became a temporary headquarters for the Jedi Order. She found herself instrumental as a teacher and brought a measure of peace to those who were studying and training on Corellia, including Joshua Arands, Mira and Kyyel Marrak. Marriage, Motherhood and Exile During this time she fell in love with the clone Jedi Aurejin who brought his own insights from the Old Order to this new grouping of Force-sensitives. After he discovered his own true identity and was prepared to relinquish his soul to the original Aurejin, Sezirok appeared to Jessalyn and cursed her with a Force withering disease. She used the last of her strength to save Luke Skywalker, who had been imprisoned in opalite by a then-unknown enemy named Pantara. As she lay dying, the anguished clone Aurejin relinquished himself to the returning spirit of the original, slain Aurejin -- but the old and new were instead merged into one, and Jessalyn herself was restored. Soon after, in 12 ABY, the two were married. While pregnant with her first child, she stayed on Kashyyyk where she was watched over by the Wookiees and her friend Johanna Siri te Danaan, a New Republic pilot and all-around scoundrel. Jessalyn and Johanna journeyed to Gaena, Aurejin's homeworld, where she would give birth to her son Kiri Valios in 13 ABY. It was Kiri, an incredibly gifted and precocious Jedi child himself, who first tapped into Johanna's Force-gifts, and she became yet another apprentice under Jessalyn, and eventually a Jedi Knight in her own right. Auotos Beta IV, also known as Gaena, became something of a safeworld for Jedi Younglings, and Jessalyn was their fierce protector as well as their wise Master. She was treated as an honored guest on Gaena by Aurejin's extended family, but she rarely knew her husband's whereabouts and she chafed against her separation and loneliness. From 13 ABY to 17 ABY, she largely remained on Gaena, keeping the Jedi Younglings secreted away for protection from the Sith and any other enemies who would wish them harm. Aurejin's Fall In 17 ABY, Jessalyn returned to the Jedi Temple on Ord Mantell to resume her duties as a Jedi Master. Around this time, Aurejin reappeared, but gravely altered, apparently a victim of Emperor Vadim's machinations. No sooner had he returned than he disappeared once more, and Jessalyn and her friends tried in vain to track him down, following him as far as Tatooine where it appeared that her missing husband had destroyed the old homestead that once served as Obi-Wan Kenobi's home in the Dune Sea, and leading to more adventures in Mos Eisley and the court of Draga the Hutt. As the evidence grew that Aurejin had, in fact, turned to the Dark Side, she began to understand that the children once again would be in danger, and she had them sent to a secret location. When she failed to track down Aurejin or discover his fate, her friends and fellow Jedi convinced her that it would be suicide to try and confront him and Vadim together, and so she relented from this task and turned her attentions to other pressing matters. In the meantime, she helped try to rescue the family of a Jedi Padawan named Enb'Zik from the clutches of Johanna's Sith half-brother, Darth Malign. Though they managed to at least retrieve the Sullustan's mother, the Jedi were chased from Trandosha to Kashyyyk by Malign's fleet. While staying with her Wookiee friends there, she discovered her old friend Paul Nighman was also looking for her, bearing a surprise: a Sith artifact he had uncovered on a previous archaeological dig. Luke and Jessa immediately understood the danger of this talisman and sent Paul to the Jedi Temple where it would hopefully be kept safe. After the Battle against Malign on Kashyyyk, in which several Jedi were killed, Jessa was reunited with Paul on Ord Mantell and they began to form a plan on how do to deal with the artifact which Malign now coveted. Around this time, several prominent planets were suddenly... disappearing, with no clues as to what had happened to them. Joining a team that included Luke, Johanna, Enb'Zik and Paul to investigate the "Void" which had once been Corellia, the whole group was afflicted with a sickness that caused horrifying nightmares that prevented sleep, as well as strange glitches and shifts in time. Jessalyn also discovered, much to her dismay, that Vadim was using Aurejin to track her movements, and used this as a means to find the asteroid colony where the Younglings had been staying. Aurejin destroyed the asteroid, and the children narrowly escaped. Upon learning of this, Jessalyn knew that her estranged husband had to be stopped -- and that her marriage was over. But she was afraid of confronting him and being corrupted by the Dark Side, and while she hesitated, others would step in to act. Once more, Jessalyn was drawn to Paul Nighman, who was the opposite of Aurejin in almost every way, and they decided to renew their relationship and find out once and for all if their destinies would follow along the same path. When her friend and former apprentice Johanna did what she herself could not do and defeated Aurejin in a lightsaber duel, Jessalyn was reunited with her young son, and found herself free to forge a new destiny for herself... People of Interest * Luke Skywalker — Former Master * Kiri Valios — child (NPC) * Johanna Siri te Danaan — apprentice and best friend * Paul Nighman — longtime friend and love interest * Ikihsa Enb'Zik — apprentice * Darth Malign— nemesis * Lara Grayson — longtime nemesis * Orson Tighe— apprentice and love interest, died 10 ABY * Simon Sezirok— nemesis, died 12 ABY * Mira Isaria— apprentice * Kyyel Marrak— apprentice * Aurejin — estranged husband, died 17 ABY * Jace Raven — brother (NPC) * Ajani Valios — brother (NPC) Valios, Jessalyn Valios, Jessalyn Valios, Jessalyn